Henge of Denravi
[CATZ]
Today, I received an e-mail about the Guild Wars 2 Welcome Series giving me some tips for combat. The e-mail was then sent a second time roughly a half hour after the first.
Since I’ve been playing the game since launch, I’m not sure why I got this e-mail? Did something accidentally get sent out?
(For the sake of clarity, my account/e-mail doesn’t appear to have been compromised, and I have an authenticator attached).
So, lots of good comments in here so far. Good to see that, at least with a small group, I’m not alone in my feelings. And I am aware that all major titles have forums like we do, and the same issues that we do.
I think the biggest thing I wanted to point out with this thread is that the forum wasn’t always like this. We’ve certainly had our ups and downs – lots of good feedback and fun threads, but also our share of not-so-good responses. As some have pointed out, this time around we just happen to have acquired a lot of “loud” displeased voices. Unfortunately, these seem to be overpowering not only threads with positive/critical feedback (and I’m saying critical, meaning constructive), but also a fair share of simply funny or entertaining threads. It presents an image of overwhelming negativity, and while I understand that those feelings are justified (we don’t need to get into that here – there are other threads for it), I don’t see why the forum needs to become one big downer because of it.
And like I said at the start, I’m not expecting this thread to change anything. People will still post the way they want. But who knows – one can dream, right?
So, I’ve considered posting this for a couple days now. I tend to lurk rather than posting. I realize this will likely fall on deaf ears, but after this weekend, I feel like it really needs to be said.
The attitude on the forums, and the response from the community over the past week (and even before that) is appalling. Every new thread is created to somehow belittle or bash the Anet dev team, or to negatively criticize every aspect of the game (whether part of the new update or not). And it isn’t just in General – it’s happening in PvP, in WvW, in the Profession forums, all of them. Is this criticism valid? Certainly – there are threads created for the exact purpose of collecting that information (and no, we don’t need to keep making 9 different threads on the same topic). But the tone of that criticism has reached an all-time low, and it’s turned the forum into a toxic mess. We’re no longer in the territory of constructive, positive discussion that a forum like this is here to encourage.
The general consensus of the community appears to be one where we expect the dev team to be chained to their desks 24/7, fixing every mistake and catering to every whim of any player who feels like our gameplay has somehow been diminished. I mean, just look around – you’ll find it in almost every new thread that’s been created this week. How does this kind of feedback – the whining, the complaining, the bashing, the lack of patience, the anger – actually help the game or promote any kind of meaningful discussion? Everyone seems to be shocked at the lack of responses from the dev team about issues – is it really any wonder why? If I were them, I wouldn’t respond to anything either, considering the community won’t be happy with whatever they have to say (or even if its what they want to hear).
Have there been problems this week? Certainly. Could things have been rolled out differently? Probably. But in no way does that excuse how this community has reacted. We dare say the Anet team can’t have a bloody holiday weekend to themselves? Of course they can! Who are you to say they don’t deserve one? (And there are threads where this exact statement is happening).
Lets use the Megaserver as an example. For those complaining about the megaservers, have you even considered that releasing this update this week, in this way, is intended? The Megaserver system is a BIG deal. And the devs have said repeatedly that its an ongoing system. I mean, the update isn’t even a week old! How do you expect the dev team to make any meaningful changes to the system to improve things, when they don’t even have enough data yet to determine what those changes should be? It’s called patience, and this community could use a huge dose of it.
Altogether, I know this thread isn’t going to deter the community’s reaction to the new content. I know it’s not going to correct anything. But I’m hoping that, if you support the dev team, their hard work, and their efforts to give us something great to play, you’ll post in here and let them know.
I love the new updates, and I know that I for one can’t wait to see what’s coming for us next
Look, the fact of the matter is this: Whether you’re doing it in the Lore forum or you’re doing it here, all anyone is doing is putting out theories. As we’ve seen in this thread and in the lore forum, these theories have evidence to both support and work against those theories. The key word being THEORIES. That’s what makes this whole process fun.
Is it possible that everything in this thread is wrong? Yes. Is it possible that the “overlords” of the Lore forum have it wrong too? Also yes. So lets stop with the nonsense of whose theories are more logical or true and stick to the “what if” that makes this whole process so interesting.
With regards to the above notes that major Sylvari re-writes would be necessary, I don’t really see that to be the case.
As we’ve hypothesized, there are multiple seeds – one of which created the Pale Tree to begin with. Whose to say that the existing Pale Tree in the Grove has broken most if not all of Mordremoth’s corruption? THIS Pale Tree might not be Scarlet’s target – perhaps another seed has sprouted, and Scarlet intends to destroy that one? Or, perhaps destroying the Pale Tree was never her intention at all?
As for the Sylvari storylines with the Pale Tree, all the story content is pre-Zhaitan’s destruction, so none of that needs to be rewritten.
If the Pale Tree is not destroyed, then all the potential fallback from that is eliminated, while keeping all our theories with Moredremoth intact. And we will see the fallout in the “change the world forever” fashion that ANet have suggested – we’ll have potential new areas of the Maguuma jungle to explore, and perhaps Brisban, Caledon, and Metrica will go the route of Kessex Hills.
I’ve actually been thinking about something along these lines myself, so its great to see I’m not alone :P
Something that we haven’t really considered yet is some of the additional clues we’ve been given (not sure if these have been brought up yet).
As we saw with Primordus, the champions of the dragons are not always draconic in nature (like Teq, Jor, and Shat). Prim had a destroyer as his champion. Could Mordremoth not have a Wurm – perhaps the one that Scarlet has woken with her thumpers that’s coming in the next update?
Also, I would wager that since we’re getting an Asura in the next update, and the images of Asura Gates in the video (notice the lighting in the shot is identical to what we see in Rata Sum), there’s a plausible chance that we’ll perhaps get to explore some new areas of the Maguuma Jungle (The Falls? Ettin’s Back?), further supporting some of the stuff you pointed out about the Pale Tree and its origins.
All I want for Wintersday is…
… a pair of pants. For my female necro (light armor).
That is all.
If it makes you feel better, I had similar luck with the OP with the forge.
About a week or so before this thread was made, I had forged Legend, Dawn, Venom, Carcharias, Bard, Lover, and Chaos Gun (in truth, I was trying to make Spark for a friend). Used about 500g total with mostly just exotics (although Legend occurred with 3 random rares and a lvl47 rare spear o_O).
But with regards to RNG, it’s certainly not all encompassing. Great luck with the forge, but 1500 Dragon Coffers later and still not a single jade weapon ticket.
Here’s hoping they don’t do a rollback. I just got Dawn from the forge…
Yup, can definitely do this. I made mine the other day (and sold for a tidy profit, I might add). Put in 3 lvl80 rares and, strangely enough, a lvl46 rare…
So, I managed to find the two I was missing last night. I’ve updated the thread title to reflect that.
I also thought I’d post some notes I learned in case anyone else is having problems.
- The Southsun goggles do not count for the 37 locations. This is for the “The Goggles Do Nothing” achievement only.
- Doing two moves for the Brisband Wildlands East End location is not necessary. I did one move on each dive location, and this was not one of the two I was missing.
- The biggest fault with dive locations is shallow water. Sometimes a jump looks correct and the landing puts you in deep water, but the achievement sees you being too close to shallow water and it doesn’t get counted.
So, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about how to confirm missed dive locations for the Dive Master achievement. I did a whole whack of them a while back, and I’m just finishing them off now. Problem is, I’m at 35/37 and have no idea which ones I’ve missed.
The problem becomes compounded by the fact that I’ve actually gone through tonight and done each of the 37 dive locations 3 times each, and yet I’m still stuck at 35. And before you ask, I’ve done the following:
- Made sure to do a move in the air to help get the dive to count
- Avoid jumping into shallow water and prematurely lose the goggles
- Had my achievement on the HUD to track any changes
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as this is becoming very annoying (and expensive).
So someone asked for some information in chat and you trolled them?
Um… no? I told them what it actually was in a whisper. But I went for something funny in chat. Something wrong with that?
Earlier tonight, someone in Queensdale asked what Behemoth was. Of course, I gave them the info: “Behemoth” was the name of the big celebrity chef cook-off!
Ahem… In announcer voice
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the time you’ve all been waiting for! Welcome to BEHEMOTH! Only the biggest and baddest Celebrity Chef Cook-Off this side of Lion’s Arch.
Who will win tonight’s big prize? Will it be three-time champion Logan Thackery with his famous Karka Cakes? Will Eir Stegalkin’s Bison Brisket Surprise cause our judges to marvel at the surprise of it all? Or maybe underdog Trehearne will blow the competition away with his Lemon Pepper Orian Chicken! You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!
Also on the program tonight is a special appearance by Zojia, who along with Mr. Sparkles will dazzle us with new confectionery creations!
And don’t miss a special guest appearance by Mrs. Lionguard Lyns herself! Will she upset the competition and take it to a whole new level? Stay tuned to BEHEMOTH for all the action!
end announcer voice
So, yeah. Think about it for a second. A guild wars celebrity chef cook off. Who would win?
Gavorn, Ascalon isn’t buggy. They added a new WP in there for the Langmar Estate. It is directly south of Guardpoint Decimis Waypoint in the Plains of Ashford.
Hmm… well, the only change that went in with the recent patch was the two extra WPs added.
Only other thing I can think of is what Twaddle said. You have 100% in all six cities?
If you take a look on your Achievements tab under the Explorer tab, can you list your completion for the various zones? (Krytan Explore, Ascalon Exploer, Maguuma Explorer, Shiverpeak Explorer, Orr Explorer)
Sounds like there might be a few missing from one of the maps. Can you take a screenshot of your overall completion in the top left corner?
Also, with the maps themselves, have you completed each of the four borderlands in WvW? From what you describe as missing, it sounds like a full zone is unexplored.
This is, I suppose, a bit of a side suggestion, but personally I really like the new introduction of split up stat icons on the hero page (denoting all the minute details of you character’s build). One thing that I wouldn’t mind seeing added to this list is your character’s current total Magic Find amount.
I can see how this could become problematic when you look at outside sources of MF (like banners or food), but even just having an automatic total for armor and build amounts could be useful (and would prevent having to manually add it up).
Hello fellow WvW’ers!
There has been a lot of debate on the forums since the announcement about the introduction of paid transfers. There are a lot of people who are, understandably, upset that this is happening. There are also a lot of people who are perhaps quite eager for this to happen. Then there are those in the middle who either don’t care, or who want to wait and see what happens before yelling or cheering in response.
I wanted to post something that, maybe, will help paint paid transfers in a positive light. And while I don’t expect to win over those who are disappointed, I truly feel that this will make the WvW community, and the experience as a whole, a lot more healthy.
Let me tell you a story. I’m from Henge of Denravi. When it comes to players leaving, I think it’s safe to say we’re the authority of how it can go REALLY bad but still come out good at the other end.
By now, I’d expect everyone knows what happened to us, but for those who don’t, here’s the brief: We were Tier 1. We had a massive exodus. We’ve been falling the ranks ever since. During the last fifteen weeks (yes, you read that right), we have steadily dropped to our current position in Tier 7. We’ve been through a lot – as the ranks dropped, more and more people left the server. Despite the losses, we kept up the fight. We’ve faced the zergs, fought back against massive odds, and I think overall we’ve proven that you can kick us as much as you want but we’ll always come back for the fight.
Now, let’s examine: if paid transfers had been in place at the beginning, would this have been our experience? It’s possible. There has been commentary that the paid transfers aren’t going to change anything – surges of movement will still occur. This is also possible. But on the whole, our server has grown rather tight. We’re one big happy family, and we’re loyal. We’ll stand by the server until she’s nothing but dust in a computer somewhere.
My point is, to those servers who are lamenting their losses (bandwagoners, people jumping ship before the transfers kick in), sure, you might be in for a few hard weeks. Maybe, like us, a lot of hard weeks. Should we have to face this? Probably not, but that’s a topic for another thread (ranking issues – gotta love ‘em). At the end of it all, if the coming of paid transfers performs some spring cleaning for the servers, I’d say take it as a positive note. Those of you that are left, come together, form a bond, and fight for your server on the battlefield. And have fun while you do it.
~Special Note~
To those in Tier 7 that we’ve fought this week (Gates of Madness and Darkhaven), thank you again for an absolutly fantastic week. At the time of this post, it looks like we’re going to take home our first win in fifteen weeks. I can honestly say that, even through all our losses, I’m happy that we’ve ended up where we are now if that means we can have a repeat of this week (looks like our match up stays the same for next week). And I’m sure I’m not the only HoD’er that feels that way. Cheers to the good fight!
As many have already said, this week is proving to be an extraordinary matchup. Good job to all participants! Compared to the last few weeks, the start of this one is proof of how fun WvW can be when the matchup is a good one.
Current Score:
HoD – 60,286
SF – 60,176
GoM – 59,430
(continued from above)
To the Developers:
This is a test scenario showing the current drop rate when fighting enemies as experienced by a player. Details on character type, fighting conditions, and additional variables are noted.
TEST SCENARIO
Character: Level 80 Necro.
Armor: Exotic (orange) weapons, armor, and accessories.
Magic Find: 0%
Area: Frostforge Sound
*Frostforge Sound was chosen for this test due to the high quantity of different enemy types, providing a larger test base.
ENEMY COMPOSITION
Enemy Information: 25 enemies total. Level Range 77-80. Defeated solo, without the aid of minions or other players. Unless noted, one of each enemy listed was defeated.
Enemy List: Longhorn Ram, Dolyak, White Moa, Icebrood Wolf, Icebrood Hunter, Ice Elemental, Minotaur Bull, Ice Imp, Arctodus (x2), Snow Troll, Moose, Grawl Shaman, Ice Worm, Ice Drake, Alpine Skelk (x2), Icebrood Colossus, Artic Jellyfish (x2), Ice Shark, Barracuda, Icebrood Fish, Icebrood Kodan, Corrupted Quaggan.
REWARDS
Gold Received: 62c
Total Items Dropped: 13
Drop Types:
- Craft = 4
- Salvage = 1
- Wintersday Gift = 2
- Gray (Junk) = 5
- White = 0
- Blue = 0
- Green = 1
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0
TEST SCENARIO
Identical test scenario as above was repeated one hour later. This time, Magic Find was set to 95%.
REWARDS
Gold Received: 72c
Total Items Dropped: 6
Drop Types:
- Craft = 2
- Salvage = 0
- Wintersday Gift = 0
- Gray (Junk) = 2
- White = 0
- Blue = 2
- Green = 0
- Yellow = 0
- Orange = 0
After watching this topic expand over numerous threads and countless posts, I feel a strong urge to comment. This post contains two separate sections. It is also long, so if you want to jump to the data, head to the next post.
To the Community:
As fans and players of Guild Wars 2, we have a strong desire to see the game we’re playing be the best it can be. We expect a solid experience – not a perfect one – but one that is not marred by bugs creating unplayable, non-challenging, or no-fun scenarios. As a whole, I believe that the game and ANet have delivered on this. However, we as a fan base – just like this game – are not perfect, and frankly a lot of posters seem to have the illusion that we are.
Throughout this thread (and the previous one), we have expressed perspectives regarding the drop rate of items. We’ve had lively discussion about the topic, produced theories to explain it, and collected some data to help prove it. But we have also spent a LOT of time whining, playing the blame game, and most importantly, generalizing the issue.
This presents a problem. In the previous thread, there were some posts that did an amazing job of proving exactly what had happened with the drop rate – specifically, these posts included percentages and math to help show a distinctive problem. However, these posts were few and far between, and in a thread that long, they got lost in the deluge. In this thread, there have been many references to “we already have all the data you need in the other thread,” but I (and I’m certain none of you), feel like sifting through that entire thread for the relevant information that will actually help solve this problem.
This is why this thread was created. It is a space for us, as a community, to post SPECIFICS of what we are experiencing. However, all too quickly, this thread is becoming much like the other: 90% of this so far is generalizations about the drop rate. “We’ve noticed a decline” and “I’ve played XX hours and gotten no rares” isn’t going to help. Those who have provided specifics (numbers) in this thread – good for you and keep it up.
Should there be more input from ANet regarding the issue? More transparency? Clearer communication about how we can help? The answer to all three is probably. But there is only so much that the ANet team can do, based on the resources (both people and data) available. Should we be responsible for helping? For addressing a problem such as this? Probably not. But we’re here now, so let’s do something about it.
This is why, as a community, we need to step up and help, and I believe we have enough of a love of this game to help it succeed. Instead of providing more generalization about the issue (we’ve established there’s a problem and it’s annoying – time to move on), let’s get some data to prove it.
The following is a simple test scenario. It gives hard data based on play experience. It is easily reproducible in any area in the world, and takes very little time to collect this information. I think, if we all took some time to put this together, we could provide some compelling evidence to show a good example of what the drop rate is like across the game. If we do that, then we’ve done as ANet has asked. This thread has done its job. Whether we see a resolution to the problem, we’ll just have to wait and see. But at least we can say we did our best, and that ANet can count on us to lend them a hand and not simply blame them when everything goes wrong.
NOTE: The following scenario deals with simply fighting enemies in the world. Easiest way to do this is to strip it down to the basics. If you want to provide info on chest drop rates, champions, or dungeons/fractals, a different test scenario may be warranted.
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